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Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Greek strikes increase

I returned from Edinburgh to read of further Greek strikes current and future. Reuters reports,

"Prime Minister George Papandreou is meeting senior members of his socialist party (PASOK) to try to stem an outbreak of unrest over the social cost of the bailout before it turns into a full-scale parliamentary rebellion.

Tens of thousands are protesting regularly against waves of austerity demanded by the European Union and IMF, as well as corruption and state mismanagement, while workers at state firms earmarked for privatisation have called a strike for Thursday."

The Greek PM is pursuing a TINA strategy, there is no alternative. Well there is and its called leave the Euro. I am surprised the Greek government has lasted this long but there will have to be fresh elections soon. No amount of bail out will stop that happening.

The Greeks are suffering. Unemployment climbed to 16.2 percent in March, the highest in the euro zone after Spain. Wednesday.'s statistics showed Industrial production tumbled 11.0 percent year- on-year in April as Greece suffers its third year of recession, public spending cuts and higher taxes.

Employees of state companies due to be privatised have strikes arranged. There are nightly protests outside their parliament buildings. as one Greek politician pointed out the true measure of their achievement is to have emptied the banks of deposits and filled the city squares with people.

Up in the Athens of the North the Tory idea to have two referendums on independence in case the Scots vote the wrong way first time shows just how close to the EU the Tories are. its a god send for wee 'Eck.